Kickstarting the Myth of the Black Confederate Soldier

I am going to assume that this is the first Kickstarter campaign related to the myth of the black Confederate soldier. The project is the work of an African American man who lives in New York state. You will find a number of different threads from the Lost Cause narrative, but the inspiration for the project itself stems “came from a statement made by Malcolm X about the field and house slave.”

I came across this project while perusing one of the Southern/Confederate heritage webpages and although there are some enthusiastic responses, as of today no one has opened up their wallets. We shall see.

Kevin, the illustrations are really well done. i think would like to read this book when it is published. The subject of the two little boys reminds me ot ‘ Two Little Confederates” authored by Thomas Nelson Page, of Hanover County, Virginia. How my heart beat as my teacher read it to the class!!! Thanks so much for sharing this. I also have the book on Holt Colier which is very readable. Quite an interesting character.

“I am aware that there are American Universities that have Black study programs, but in my opinion these mainstream programs will not touch or consider an examination about the lineage and evolution of these two types of slaves. The house and field slaves lived radically different lives and in trying to give slavery a “one size fits all” appearance, modern institutions are trying to be so politically correct that it makes them ignore the subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, differences between these two types of bondage. Modern institutions have become unwitting proponents of and specialists in producing a unique form of chicken shit.”

I’m going to make a great leap here, and assume that this person has done hardly any reading on the topic of slavery in the US. My comps would have been a *lot* easier if there was only one, unifying, uncomplicated “PC” version of slavery being taught by the “modern institutions.”

I think it’s safe to say that this individual has relatively little or no understanding of recent scholarship on slavery, the Civil War or anything else for that matter. I do find some of his background understanding of this subject to be particularly interesting. It’s not your straightforward Lost Cause interpretation.

For the Civil War buffs among us, it’s really worth spending some time over at Kevin Levin’s blog, Civil War Memory. I can’t act like I discovered the place–some readers brought it to my attention. But it’s a great blog dealing in exactly what its title claims.